Bombshell: The explosive backstory in the Robert Ortloff murder trial may be more fascinating than the case itself

But he wasn't. He had done nothing for Ortloff.

In Oregon, a polygraph examiner from the Tempe Police Department asked Tokars a series of questions designed to see whether the snitch was telling the truth.

The examiner said the results were "inconclusive," which Magazzini later suggested might have been because of various medications Tokars was taking.

Magazzini returned to Tempe with one hell of a yarn and the case of a career. Time passed.

Then, in March 2003, then-Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley wrote to federal officials that his office was prepared to indict Robert Ortloff "due, in large part, to the anticipated cooperation and trial testimony of federal inmate Fredric Tokars."

Around that time, Fred Tokars was accepted into the witness-protection program. No one will confirm where he is housed, or whether he is in prison at all.

On May 14, 2003, a Maricopa County grand jury indicted Robert Ortloff in the murder of Kathleen Smith, but not before one of the jurors asked Detective Magazzini a question about Tokars:

"What credibility can you really place on a person that has [themself] in that predicament [and] used to be a judge and a lawyer?"

Prosecutor Noel Levy wouldn't allow the detective to answer, saying that "normally, a [trial] jury determines credibility, not you."

Now, going on five years after that indictment, Fred Tokars finally will tell his story to a 12-person jury sitting in the courtroom of Judge Warren Granville.

That moment, especially the cross-examination of Tokars by Ortloff attorney Dan Patterson, promises to be as dramatic as it gets.

If the jury believes Tokars, Ortloff will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

If it doesn't, Ortloff walks.

---

OCTOBER 5, 1984 (all times but the 10:42 call are approximate)

7 a.m. Kathleen Smith drops off her boyfriend at her mother's home in Tempe, then attends a class at Mesa Community College.

9:50 a.m. Robert Ortloff's mother calls his home from Fiesta Flowers. Jennifer Spies answers, lies about Ortloff's whereabouts, and says he is on his way to work. Actually, she doesn't know where he is.

10–10:30 a.m. Richard Schibler claims to have gashed a finger in his Subway store on 10th Street and Mill Avenue.

10:40 a.m. Two eyewitnesses see a man fleeing from the direction of Kathleen Smith's condo. The man leaves a perfect footprint in a flowerbed a few yards from the condo's front door.

10:42 a.m. Tempe Fire Department dispatches two engines to SceneOne Condominiums, Kathleen's residence.

10:30–11 a.m. Witnesses see Robert Ortloff at Fiesta Flowers, about 10 minutes from the Kathleen Smith crime scene. No one notes any sign of injuries to Ortloff.

11:15 a.m. Richard Schibler checks himself into Tempe St. Luke's Hospital to receive stitches for his cut left ring finger.

Early afternoon Ortloff and others are informed at Fiesta Flowers about the fire at Kathleen Smith's condo and the discovery of a body inside. Ortloff claims to have injured himself sometime afterward in the back of his shop.

4 p.m. Tempe police speak with Ortloff for the first time and notice the scratches to his neck and that he is limping (broken toe).

---

BIG PICTURE TIMELINE

February 1984 Robert Ortloff and Kathleen Smith start ROKS Incorporated hoping to become Subway restaurant franchisees.

June 1984 Ortloff embezzles $7,500 from his grandfather.

October 1, 1984 Ortloff repays grandfather with ROKS business funds.

October 5, 1984 Kathleen Smith is murdered.

January 1985 Someone puts a homemade bomb in a Subway owned by key Smith murder case figure Rick Schibler.

June 1985 Ortloff's live-in girlfriend, Jennifer Spies, gives immunity-protected statement to prosecutors, then abruptly leaves Arizona for California. Does not implicate Ortloff directly in murder.

September 1985 The Maricopa County Attorney's Office declines Tempe PD request to seek murder indictment against Ortloff.

November 1985 Tempe PD and FBI meet in strategy session about Ortloff and the two cases (murder and attempted bombing) in which he is the prime suspect.

January 1986 Ortloff is arrested in the mail-bombing of U.S. Army Specialist Thad Gulzcynski at Fort Hood, Texas.

June 1986 A federal jury in Waco, Texas, votes 10-2 to acquit Ortloff of all mail-bomb charges. The judge orders a mistrial.

August 1986 Ortloff is convicted of all mail-bomb charges, and later is sentenced to 50 years in prison.

March 1993 The Office of the Inspector General releases its findings on a major scandal inside the FBI crime lab. One of those excoriated is bomb expert Tom Thurman, a key witness at Ortloff's 1986 trials.

January 1999 Ex-prosecutor-turned-murderer Fred Tokars is transferred to a federal prison in Wisconsin, where Ortloff is serving time.

March 1999 A friend of Tokars tells members of Kathleen Smith's family that Ortloff has confessed to Tokars that he murdered the young woman.

April 1999 Ortloff is not granted parole and is told he will have to wait 15 more years for reconsideration.

July 1999 Tokars tells a Tempe police detective that Ortloff confessed to him.

May 2003 Ortloff is indicted on first-degree murder and other charges by a Maricopa County grand jury.

February 2008 Ortloff's murder trial begins in the courtroom of Judge Warren Granville.